The '01 Passat and '02 Jetta I had both said to disassemble most everything in front of the windshield basically for a water pump. VAG lol. Never again. YMMV.
Affordable, boring, decent MPGs, and reliable? Camry or Accord. The end.
I personally prefer the Camry but we've taken a variant of both to nearly 300k with nothing other than oil changes and tires and they have lived on after we sold them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
True, but there are some out there that look good on the surface anyway. They're gonna suck on gas though.